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  Rules - A Short History of What...

  Lorraine Daston

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  Rules order almost every aspect of our lives. They set our work hours, dictate how we drive and set the table, tell us whether to offer an extended hand or cheek in greeting, and organize the rites of life, from birth through death. We may chafe under the rules we have, and yearn for ones we don't, yet no culture could do without them. In Rules, historian Lorraine Daston traces their development in the Western tradition and shows how rules have evolved from ancient to modern times. Drawing on a rich trove of examples, including legal treatises, cookbooks, military manuals, traffic regulations, and game handbooks, Daston demonstrates that while the content of rules is dazzlingly diverse, the forms that they take are surprisingly few and long-lived. 
   
   
   
  Daston uncovers three enduring kinds of rules: the algorithms that calculate and measure, the laws that govern, and the models that teach. She illustrates how rules can change—how supple rules stiffen, or vice versa, and how once bothersome regulations become everyday norms. Rules have been devised for almost every imaginable activity and range from meticulous regulations to the laws of nature. Daston probes beneath this variety to investigate when rules work and when they don't, and why some philosophical problems about rules are as ancient as philosophy itself while others are as modern as calculating machines.

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  Sam Houston and Santa Anna: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  More than most men in history, Sam Houston was a contradictory individual. He was born in the United States while George Washington was in office, and in an era when the native people who were gradually being subjugated were considered savages, he called them friends and even lived among them. He was abandoned by his first wife and, after suffering the sting of divorce, married again in the manner of his native family, only to abandon his Indian bride to return to life among his own people. In the interim, he fought for their rights in the halls of government, defending them even as he obtained favor in the eyes of one of their worst enemies. He seemed to have the right mix of charm and grit to make a successful life with him and their large family. 
  	Though he was born and raised elsewhere, Houston is considered one of Texas’ truest sons, and during his life he fought for its independence from Mexico and then for its submission to the United States. He owned slaves himself but spent his entire political career fighting against the spread of “the American cancer” to the West. Then, when his beloved state seceded from the Union, he not only opposed secession but sacrificed his own position to protest it, only to turn around and support the Confederacy during the last years of his life.  
  The butcher of the Alamo and Goliad. The traitor who sold half of Mexico. The Napoleon of the West. Mr. Fifteen Nails. The Mother Country’s seducer. Almost 150 years after his death, a lot of name-calling is still being directed towards Antonio López de Santa Anna, president of Mexico 11 times in the 19th century, and today, the vast majority of his compatriots consider him the greatest traitor in history. It was not like that in his day; actually, there had never been a more popular man in Mexico, or anyone more eulogized and essential than General Santa Anna. In life he was the most famous - and infamous - Mexican general and politician. 

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  Should We Fall To Ruin

  Harrison Christian

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  This is the untold story of a remote garrison of Allied soldiers on New Guinea during WWII who stood up to the Japanese invasion despite insurmountable odds. 
  When the Japanese invade in 1942, the Australian men and women stationed at the New Guinea port of Rabaul flee into the jungle. Written off by their government as ‘hostages to fortune’, the little-known garrison on Australia’s tropic frontier has been left with no modern equipment, no lifeline to the outside, and no means of escape. Most are captured and killed in the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, which remains Australia’s worst sea disaster. But the surviving soldiers and nurses carry on, to fight the Japanese on other fronts, or to witness the collapse of the Japanese Empire from the inside. Having borne the brunt of defeat, their letters and diaries also record the turning point of the war and the march to victory. 
  Rich in detail drawn from first person accounts, Should We Fall To Ruin illuminates this untold period in military history. It is a compelling tale of bravery and resilience in the face of a seemingly unstoppable enemy.

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  Developing to Scale - Technology...

  Heidi Morefield

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  The first critical book on “appropriate technology,” Developing to Scale shows how global health came to be understood as a problem to be solved with the right technical interventions. 
    
  In 1973, economist E. F. Schumacher published Small Is Beautiful, which introduced a mainstream audience to his theory of “appropriate technology”: the belief that international development projects in the Global South were most sustainable when they were small-scale, decentralized, and balanced between the traditional and the modern. His theory gained widespread appeal, as cuts to the foreign aid budget, the national interests of nations seeking greater independence, postcolonial activism, and the rise of the United States’ tech sector drove stakeholders across public and private institutions toward cheaper tools. In the ensuing decades, US foreign assistance shifted away from massive modernization projects, such as water treatment facilities, toward point-of-use technologies like village water pumps and oral rehydration salts. This transition toward the small scale had massive implications for the practice of global health. 
    
  Developing to Scale tells the history of appropriate technology in international health and development, relating the people, organizations, and events that shaped this consequential idea. Heidi Morefield examines how certain technologies have been defined as more or less “appropriate” for the Global South based on assumptions about gender, race, culture, and environment. Her study shows appropriate technology to be malleable, as different constituencies interpreted its ideas according to their own needs. She reveals how policymakers wielded this tool to both constrain aid to a scale that did not threaten Western interests and to scale the practice of global health through the development and distribution of technical interventions.

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  Mysterious Mass Disappearances

  Martin K. Ettington

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  This book is all about mass disappearances which have occurred in history. 
   These events run the gamut from entire villages whose inhabitants disappeared to a flight of military planes gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle. 
   Many ships have disappeared so I only cover a few of the most notorious ones.  
   I also do not usually cover missing families or where just several people have gone absent. 
   It is much more interesting to me if an entire army became lost and missing or strange things happened to a group which has become a big mystery. 
   There are also some recent missing persons mysteries since these events happen even in the modern age.

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  The Communist Manifesto

  Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx

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  "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism."
  
  In a world transformed by the Industrial Revolution, Marx and Engels set out to decode the hidden mechanics of society. They argue that all of human history is the history of class struggles: the constant friction between those who own the means of production and those who sell their labor to survive. The Communist Manifesto is a call to action that envisions a future beyond exploitation, predicting the inevitable rise of the working class and the transition to a classless, stateless society. Whether viewed as a historical artifact or a living critique of global economics, this text remains essential for understanding the modern world.
  
  The Great Divide: Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat: The Manifesto famously defines the two warring camps of the industrial age. The Bourgeoisie (the ruling capitalist class) are described as a revolutionary force that "shattered" feudalism but created a system of "naked self-interest." Opposing them is the Proletariat (the working class), whom Marx describes as the "grave-diggers" of the very system that created them.
  
  The Ten-Point Program: In the second section, the authors lay out a controversial and radical set of measures for the "most advanced countries," including the abolition of private land ownership, a heavy progressive income tax, and the centralization of credit and communication in the hands of the state. These points sparked over a century of political experimentation and debate across every continent.
  
  A Legacy of Global Change: From the revolutions of 1917 to the modern labor movements of the 21st century, the rhetoric of the Manifesto has been used to challenge the status quo. Its closing cry—"Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"—remains one of the most famous slogans in human language, symbolizing the birth of international political solidarity.
  
  Analyze the roots of the modern world. Purchase "The Communist Manifesto" today.

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